There is clearly a need for automated cable cutting and stripping operations in industry. The art is defined by Havens, U.S. Pat. No. 3,153,332, Morrone, U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,911, Smith et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,909,911, Cross, U.S. Pat. No. 4,999,910, and most recently by Stepan, U.S. Pat. No. 5,111,720. These prior art references clearly teach how to hold, grip, move, cut and strip wire and cable of all kinds. Of particular interest is Morrone and Smith which each teach the use of energy applied to the cable for cleaning off plastic insulators and Cross which teaches the use of electrical conduction to sense when the insulation is fully cut. The Stepan reference teaches the use of an electronic storage device to hold the information necessary to control the radial positions of an insulation cutter.
These teachings do not show a means for determining the thickness to be cut "on-the-fly", as it were. For instance the Stepan machine requires knowing before hand, what thickness the layers to be cut will be, and to install this information into a storage device before cutting operations start. This may sometimes be acceptable when large lot cutting is to be done, but does not meet the needs of short runs and odd jobs, and when cable thicknesses vary frequently within lots and between lots or when cable tolerences are large.
A further disadvantage that appears frequently in real situations, when prior art stripping apparatus and methods are used, is the failure to make correct readings in printed reference materials, failure to properly label cable so that the associated reference is unknown, and the failure to properly convert between systems of measurement units. These problems result in delays on the shop floor and in poor quality results.
Clearly, then, there is a need for an improved cable and wire stripping apparatus that overcomes the above difficulties. Such a needed apparatus is described in the following summary and detailed description and is based upon principles which are defined in the appended claims.